this is bullshit

NEW YORK - A newspaper report Thursday said tens of thousands of eligible voters have been removed from rolls or blocked from registering in at least six swing states, but election officials quickly lined up to defend their registration procedures and said they had done nothing wrong.
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The New York Times based its findings on reviews of state records and Social Security data, and said it had identified apparent problems in Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina.

The Times said voters appear to have been purged by mistake and not because of any intentional violations by election officials or coordinated efforts by any party. It says that some states are improperly using Social Security data to verify new voters' registration applications, and that others might have broken rules that govern removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election.

Elections officials in several states disputed that any voters were illegally removed from rolls. Michigan elections director Chris Thomas said the state removed only people who have died, notified authorities of a move or who were declared unfit to vote, which is well within the parameters of the law. Thomas said only 11,000 voters were removed from Michigan rolls in August — not 33,000, the figure cited in the report.

"There is no illegal purging going on," Thomas told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The New York Times did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Colorado, however, said it would review its practices of "canceling" voters who had moved, died or were deemed otherwise ineligible. Secretary of State Mike Coffman said he asked lawyers to determine if the state's protocols violated a federal ban on "systematic" purging close to an election, but said because people, not computers, were doing the reviews, he believed they were sound. He said nearly 2,500 voters may be restored if the procedure is found to have violated law.

States have been trying to follow the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by removing the names of voters who should no longer be listed. But for every voter added to the rolls in the past two months in some states, election officials have removed two, the Times' review of the records found.

States appear to have violated federal law in one of two ways, according to the newspaper report. Some are removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election, which is not allowed except when voters die, notify the authorities that they have moved out of state or have been declared unfit to vote, The Times said.

And some of the states are improperly using Social Security data to verify registration applications for new voters, the newspaper reported.

Under the Help America Vote Act, many states have an agreement with the Social Security Administration requiring them to submit the last four digits of a new voter's Social Security number for verification if the person does not have a valid state-issued ID, such as a license.

Last week, amid concerns about an uptick in the number of requests for verification, Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue sent a letter to officials in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio seeking to verify that the checks were run only on new voters who don't have acceptable identification. States have said the increase in checks is due partly to a stream of new voters coming in to register.

In Georgia, federal officials say some 2 million checks have been completed, but only 406,000 new voters registered. The Department of Justice has questioned the checks, and state officials say they are trying to determine how federal authorities arrived at that figure.

North Carolina elections watchdog Bob Hall, who heads the advocacy group Democracy North Carolina, defended the state's elections board. Hall said he has found that many registration forms are incomplete or partly illegible and that many prospective voters provide Social Security numbers instead of driver's licenses. Because of that, he said it's not surprising that the state would need to run so many verifications.

Indiana also defended its procedures. "Using all available appropriate technology is our best way to combat voter fraud that we know exists in this state and across the country," Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita said in a statement Thursday.

If voters were wrongfully removed from rolls, the concern is that on Election Day, voters who have been removed from the rolls could show up and be challenged by political party officials or election workers. And because Democrats have more aggressively registered voters, any discrepancy could disproportionately affect the

Boycott this station

George Hunter / The Detroit News
SOUTHFIELD -- Longtime Metro Detroit radio reporter Karen Dinkins has been fired after wearing a pro-Barack Obama T-shirt while covering a rally for the presidential candidate Sunday at the Detroit Public Library.

Dinkins, who has worked at WWJ (950 AM) for 13 years, acknowledged that the radio station fired her Monday, but she did not elaborate. 'I don't want to comment at this time,' she said. Georgeann Herbert, WWJ's director of programming, said in a statement that Dinkins compromised the station's objectivity by wearing the T-shirt. '(The station) believes that our credibility with our listeners rests on the independence of our newsroom staff,' the statement said. 'WWJ does not favor any candidate, party or issue.

'While we encourage employees to exercise their rights as citizens, we expect them to be on guard against any actual or perceived conflict of interest when covering news stories,' the statement said.


You know if a veteran was fired from her "bread and butter" they won't mind taking the "jelly" from us at the polls. Please do not wear any apparel that may cause them to turn you away from the polls.

Keating Economics

Much Clearer Now.

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight:


If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic", "different."
but
Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, a quintessential American story.


If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
but
Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.


Graduate from Harvard law School, you are unstable.
but
Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.


If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional law professor, spend 8 years as a state senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment, Public Works, and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
but
If your total resume is: Local weather girl, 4 years on the city council, 6 years as mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second-highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
but
If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age-appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
but
If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system, while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
but
If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25, and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.